I bid my soul through the flames before me; mesec

[breach]

for so long had my teeth held my tongue from a venomous voice
but the poison has passed from my lips to my hands, an incendiary point

In her younger years, his kindness would have given her pause.

Would have stayed her hand.

In her younger years, she would have never dreamed of doing that which she does now.

But she is older now (old enough—hardened enough) and the world has stripped her clean of any softness that she may have truly called her own. Instead, when she looks at him and sees the same silver of her mother’s eyes peering back at her, she does not feel warmth bloom in her chest. Instead she feels the dull ache of the cold—the reminder that her mother had been nearly ripped to shreds and was but a breath away from dying. The knowledge that this death was easier than the metaphorical one Sochi had in this kingdom.

So she just smiles. The corners of her lips pulling tight.

“Good,” she says on a snarl, ignoring his question outright. Without waiting any further, she lunges forward, paws outstretched. She falls upon him heavily and feels his body collapse underneath the weight of her tigress body. All she hears is the heaviness of her breathing, the ground shifting beneath her, the thudding of her own pulse in her ears. It’s different from her hunts, but close enough that her mind snaps into that zone immediately. He is just prey. He is the deer on a foggy morning. The antelope on a hill.

She doesn’t go in for the kill, but she flirts with it.

Her jaws snap as she bites at his face, ripping the pieces she can get access to. Her claws sink into his flesh. There is the taste of copper on her tongue. The thrill of hearing bones crunch.

She sees red.

She vibrates with the anger that pulses through her.

(Is this how Ghaul felt when he tore her apart? Does Mesec feel like she did during her first death?)

When she is certain he is close to death, she stops herself. Her face is stained, her body trembling, and she pulls back just enough to catch her breath. “Tell them,” she spits as she stands over him, making sure that he was still awake. “Tell them,” she snarls again, making sure that he was conscious enough to hear what she had to say. “This will be the fate of any soul who dares call Loess home if they ever raise a hand against the East ever again.” She finds his bruised, torn gaze—searches the depths of it.

“Swear to me you’ll pass the message along.”

A pause.

“Tell them Breach sent you.”

though ritual pyre sending smoke to the sky as the building continues to burn
though rapt in the ruin, the pain in the grave, is lies you leave tied to the earth